Albert Barnes

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ALBERT BARNES - PAGE 2

FURTHERMORE ... Hidden costs in moving the Youth Study Center The editorial criticizing "councilmanic privilege," in connection with Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell's holding up a site for the new Youth Study Center at a price to the city, state, and the PHA of $12 million, was commendable ("While families wait," Thursday). However, not included in that figure are the millions of taxpayer dollars in expenses, caused by the delay necessitating an interim move, and the cost of rehabbing the former Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute for use as a temporary YSC. Plus, there is the questionable giveaway of valuable city property to a private institution, particularly in view of the fact that it appears that the city did not engage in a feasibility study of its merit.

Sometimes, feuding families just need to sit down together, privately, and talk. No lawyers, no other middlemen. Sometimes, that kind of gathering can generate the goodwill necessary to end the feud. Let's hope last week's meeting between the Barnes Foundation and Lincoln University was just such a start. As yet, no meeting of legal minds has produced an accord in the eminently solvable dispute between the university and the Main Line art facility. Maybe face-to-face meetings among key players, sans counsel, will produce results.

The Barnes Foundation yesterday temporarily withdrew its request to extend the tour of its paintings to two more cities. Foundation president Richard H. Glanton said "it's still remotely possible" that the paintings can be exibited in Munich and Rome, but, "I'm not sure it can happen. " The Foundation had asked Orphans Court in Montgomery County to allow "From Cezanne to Matisse: Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation" to be shown in the two cities. The court, which oversees the will of founder Albert Barnes, must approve any exibition of the foundation's paintings outside its museum in Lower Merion.

In the latest effort to keep the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, township officials have passed a zoning ordinance that would more than double the number of visitors permitted each year. The ordinance approved Wednesday allows up to 140,000 visitors per year and takes the place of a previous rule that allowed the Barnes to be open to the public three days a week and restricted to about 400 visitors a day, for about 62,000 visitors per year. The gallery, which holds one of the nation's most celebrated collections of Impressionist art, is planning a move to the Parkway in Philadelphia.

A JUDGE YESTERDAY upheld his ruling allowing the Barnes Foundation to move its multibillion-dollar art collection from the suburbs to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, rejecting claims that new evidence should force a reconsideration of his hotly contested decision. The opinion by Montgomery County Orphans Court Judge Stanley Ott seemed to eliminate any doubt about the planned May opening of the institution's new downtown home, which has been under construction for nearly two years. Foundation President Derek Gillman praised the "clarity and thoroughness" of Ott's decision.

Large fortunes are made, usually by outstanding business acumen followed by prudent investing. Piles of money can make even larger piles of money very quickly. It is certainly a positive when very wealthy members of society pledge to give away half their fortunes . . . or is it? How many of those "gifts" are value-free? It can, in some instances, just be another way of extending the power of these already powerful men far into the future ("Lenfest makes giving pledge," Thursday). H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest's gift to "save" the Barnes Foundation is a prime example.

The long journey of the Barnes Foundation from suburban Merion to downtown Philadelphia, which began six years ago with a financial crisis and a protracted legal battle, reached another milestone yesterday when the board announced that architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien will design a new home on the Parkway for the renowned collection of Impressionist art. In choosing the New York-based husband-and-wife team, the Barnes has found architects especially...

Because Albert C. Barnes established it as a school for art education and not a museum, the Barnes Foundation faces no legal or ethical restraints against selling off any of the art it holds outside of its gallery collection, an expert on museum management testified yesterday. Marie C. Malaro, former associate general counsel at the Smithsonian and former director of George Washington University's graduate program in museum studies, also said the Barnes' plan to move its gallery from Lower Merion to Center City "would change the whole ambience.

EVERYONE SEEMS to be racing to Montgomery County's Orphans Court these days over the future of the Barnes Foundation and its peerless art collection. First the trustees of the Barnes Foundation, citing mounting financial problems and endless legal battles with its Merion neighbors, file a petition asking the court for permission to move to Philadelphia - breaking, in essence, the will of the donor who started the foundation, Dr. Albert Barnes. Then Lincoln University, which Barnes entrusted to appoint the majority of the foundation's trustees, file a legal challenge to stop its own appointees on one aspect of their plan: expanding the number of trustees from five to 15, effectively diluting Lincoln's influence.

Last month, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court cleared the way for the financially ailing Barnes Foundation to change its rules and move its famed art gallery to Philadelphia. For one critical year, Lincoln University fought the proposed changes, and then relented. Through interviews with more than 30 people and reviews of court records and correspondence, The Inquirer has pieced together what went on behind the scenes that year as Philadelphia politics and power clashed with a proud, historically black university in Chester County.